The War on Energy goes hot

If you were thinking that what America really needs at this juncture is a job-killing jihad against an imaginary problem that will drop big increases in the cost of energy on an already weak economy, President Barack Obama was speaking directly to you today, when he announced his exciting new plan to do an end-run around Congress and resume his War On Energy. In fact, one of his advisers actually described part of the new effort as a “war on coal.”

That would be Daniel P. Schrag, who is the White House “climate change” advisor, which essentially makes him a witch doctor with a degree from Harvard. “Everybody is waiting for action,” he declared. (That’s the great thing about the Church of Global Warming – you get to decide what “everybody” wants, and call them heretics when they resist compliance.) “The one thing the President really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.”

That’s probably not what the people about to lose their jobs to this exercise of raw executive power think they need, but a lot of them voted for Barack Obama, so they missed their one chance to speak up in defense of their livelihood. That’s how America works now – if you don’t join a powerful political coalition and get the right people elected, your job could go away. The coal industry currently employs over 750,000 people, but that’s about to change.

In his big climate-change speech today, President Obama announced that “Americans are already paying the price of inaction.” Of course, there are no actual dollar figures to go along with that imaginary price, but you can bet there will be big bucks attached to the price Obama is going to force you to pay now. He’s going to subcontract the assassination of the Keystone XL pipeline to the EPA, even though it just got another clean bill of environmental health from the National Academy of Sciences.

We’ll have more Solyndra-style investments into the sort of solar and wind projects the bankrupt governments of Europe are backing away from, after decades of failure. Doubtless many top Obama contributors will be lined up to collect the subsidies. According to Fox News, the goodies include $8 billion in federal loan guarantees for “technologies that can keep carbon dioxide produced by power plants from being released into the atmosphere,” and an effective doubling of the solar, wind, and geothermal production on federal land.

But it’s going to be rough on everyone else, because the cost of energy is going up, with a corresponding hit to prices and productivity in Obama’s dead-parrot jobless economy. As an angry House Speaker John Boehner noted, the President is trying to push through a lot of junk that he couldn’t even get past congressional Democrats, because they didn’t want to go home with a bundle of food stamps for their angry unemployed constituents:

“At a time when millions of Americans remain out of work and the cost of groceries, gas, and health care continues to rise, it is astonishing that President Obama is unilaterally imposing new regulations that will cost jobs and increase energy prices. The president has always been hostile to affordable sources of American energy that power most of our economy, but this program – which amounts to a National Energy Tax – only escalates his attack. The president’s advisor calls it a ‘War on Coal,’ but it’s even more than that. These policies, rejected even by the last Democratic-controlled Congress, will shutter power plants, destroy good-paying American jobs, and raise electricity bills for families that can scarcely afford it.

“The last thing our economy needs right now is another layer of government red tape that will make it harder to grow businesses and hire more workers. America needs more affordable energy options, not fewer. That’s why House Republicans are committed to a true all-of-the-above energy approach that will lower energy prices and create good American jobs. And it’s why we continue to call on the president to approve the Keystone pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs that will come along with it.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose state of Kentucky will be hit hard by Obama’s War on Coal, growled that Obama’s climate change plan “really encapsulates the attitude this Administration holds in regard to states like mine.” Kentucky’s junior senator, Rand Paul, wasn’t happy either:

“President Obama today declared a war on coal, and thus declared a war on Kentucky jobs and our economy. Whether it is through the retroactive denial of permits, onerous regulations on coal-fired power plants, or unreasonable environmental requirements, the policies of this Administration are threatening the very way of life that has sustained Kentucky communities for generations.

“As a defender of the free market and of coal, I will continue to fight back against the EPA and any other federal agency whose goal is to stifle coal production. I will continue to stand up for our miners in Washington as we continue to recognize the sacrifices they make to provide food for their families and energy for America.”

House Energy and Commerce chair Fred Upton (R-MI) still remembers all those crazy old Obama campaign promises about an “all of the above” energy strategy, which just became as dead as Obama’s promise that we could keep health insurance plans we liked under ObamaCare:

“The President’s war on affordable energy is a war on jobs. We have weathered a very difficult economy the last five years and we are still not out of the woods. Punishing abundant American energy will threaten jobs, hobble our manufacturing resurgence, and cause electricity costs to go up – hurting folks in Middle America the most.

“The President repeatedly promised to support an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy but based on this newly repackaged list of old, job-destroying ideas, we know all along it has been ‘all-of-the-above but nothing-from-below.’ America can continue to safely and responsibly develop our abundant energy resources and support alternative sources of energy without driving up energy costs. We will continue fighting for jobs and American energy.”

Gosh, Mr. Upton, next you’re going to remind Obama of all those times he said American jobs were his top priority! Erase those parts of your memory, and you’ll be much happier in Obama’s America, where tomorrow is his personal property, and yesterday is whatever he says it was.

The vice-chair of Upton’s committee, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), sarcastically observed that “if we cannot get China to hand over one American fugitive, the prospects of China following the President’s climate lead are dim. Leaders in Beijing will gladly welcome America’s job creators, and America’s coal, with open arms.”

Nice blending of the Edward Snowden story into the Obama War on Energy, Rep. Blackburn! Vladimir Putin of Russia is essentially giving Obama a wedgie over Snowden while the rest of the world roars with laughter, and of course nations like Russia and China have never shared the West’s enthusiasm for economy-crippling environmental delusions. They’re still waking up the poor Germans knocked into a coma by Obama’s dusty speech at the Brandenburg Gate. The Taliban just sent a squad of suicide bombers into Kabul, just to make sure everyone knows they’re winning in Afghanistan, not making a peace deal. There isn’t much chance the rest of the world is going to follow Obama into sustainable darkness.

But the President’s energy agenda isn’t really much concerned with the rest of the world. This is about downshifting America, weakening the middle class, enriching the President’s supporters in green industry, and finding a way to look large and in charge, after months of scandal and embarrassing Empty Chair evasions. You’ll pay more for energy, which means you’ll pay more for everything, while the ten-year absence of global warming stretches into 15 years, and then 20, and fanatics like Barack Obama fling insults at the people who actually care about science and hard data.

“We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth society,” he sneered today. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.” And yes, he went on to blame storms on human activity. The official religion of the Leviathan State is the grimmest, most apocalyptic faith since Thor and Odin got out of the Ragnarok business. Unfortunately, as Obama made clear today, membership and tithe are mandatory.